Tan, seven, has cerebral palsy and can’t walk, so every morning for the last three years, her granny has carried her the five kilometres to school, waited for her, and carried her home across southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality… Incredibly though, the two have never been late for school, even though the walk takes around two hours on a good day. It is estimated Xiang has carried Tan, now seven, over 10,000 km.

Since 2003, we continue to build the largest homes with the largest square footage on the planet. Here’s the breakdown in square footage.

That means our homes use more energy to heat and cool than any other country on Earth. I mean, for real, fuck the planet!

We need more space to put our stuff!!!

Have you been to HomeGoods lately? That place is a treasure trove of cheap, Asian accessories to fill your closets with.

Space on your tabletop? Have I got a polar-bear-sized tchotchke calling your name!

We build and buy gigantic homes, and then we stuff those houses with lots of big, cheap furniture built in China by Right-wing Corporations who know where their money can get them the cheapest, youngest labor!

And these international companies hide their money overseas, and the CEOs of those companies say things like, “Look at John Kerry evading taxes by registering his boat in another state! What a hypocrite! Right!?!”

And then they sneeze into a hundred dollar bill and we collectively say, “Bless you, sire.”

We may have lost the women’s world cup against smelly old Japan, but we won the Square Footage Battle.

It boggles my mind that if a man built Noah’s ark today, it must meet modern standards of safety according to this NYTimes article describing a Dutchman who built a Noah’s ark tourist trap attraction.

Even though the thing can’t sail, the eyesore attracts an astounding number of people willing to shell out their hard-earned money to see the parade of lunacy that is Noah’s ark.

Noah’s ark is a reminder of the completely impossible. It’s a reminder that many people believe that all of humanity are the product of incest upon incest, and that all the populations from China to Africa to Europe and the Americas come from a five-hundred-year-old man and his 480-year-old sons.

Somehow all that is supposed to make you feel better. It’s supposed to make everyone respect you when you repeat that you think it’s literally true. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, that there was no global flood, that all animals would never make it to one place on earth and re-disperse back where they originated.

The same reason people are willing to line some guy’s pockets to see an unsailable boat is the same reason people are willing to pay Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol $262,500 to be the spokeswoman for abstinence-only pregnancy prevention education. They shell out another $160,000 in advertising fees, and a measly $35,000 to actual clinics.

The Palin’s need to take that magic act to Vegas.

Despite all the evidence that Bristol is not fit for abstinence-only pregnancy prevention leadership, she’s placed on a pedestal to the tune of more money than most people make in several years.

That is a mean slight of hand, you guys have there. Show me how you do that.

Abstinence-only pregnancy prevention should hire me. I produced zero children outside of marriage. Hell, I can’t produce a child within marriage.

That alone should make me ten times more qualified than Bristol Fucking Palin.

When I reached the dating age, my head was chockfull of abstinence-only education that completely fuckedscrewed manipulated my view of sex and marriage. I have that working for me.

I can be charismatic and entertaining if I try. Also a plus, right?

Where’s the address for this organization? I’m sending them my resume.

In the meantime, someone hook me up with the magic it takes to make money off deceptions like these.

When I started to write my book The Chinese Dream three years ago, people in the United States did not even believe there was a middle class in China. Today, China’s middle class is already larger than the entire population of the United States and is expected to reach 800 million in fifteen years.

If this prediction sounds too bullish, chances are it is not. In 2006, McKinsey predicted that the by 2025, the Chinese middle class would reach 612 million and China would become the third largest consumer market in the world after the U.S. and Japan.

These numbers are already outdated. A recent Credit Suisse reportpredicts China’s consumer market will reach $16 trillion by 2020, overtaking the United States as the world’s largest consumer market in the world.

2020 is less than ten years from now. Whether or not China will become the world’s largest consumer economy remains to be seen. However, this much is clear: the Chinese middle class has already changed the dynamics of the world we live in. The world is no longer “China produces and the United States consumes.” U.S. exports to China are growing almost two times as fast as overall U.S. exports, supporting half a million jobs.

I can hear you thinking, “What the hell did you watch the 2010 ‘The Karate Kid‘ for?”

Because I wanted to, dammit.

The movie wasn’t awful. The Smith boy did okay. The woman who played his mom was a good reprise to the original quirky mom. Jackie Chan was his usual mumbly self. Some of the fight choreography was pretty good. They did a good job redoing the scene where Chan beats up the kids beating up the Smith boy. They made sure it wasn’t all pedophile-y.

There is a point in the movie when you ask yourself, “At what point during the filming did Jaden turn to his co-stars and ask, ‘Did you know my dad played the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air?”

There were some REALLY dumb parts of the plot. For instance, instead of moving to California, the Smith boy and his mother move to China, because mom can’t find work in the car factories of Detroit. So she gets a job in a factory in China. China. A down-on-her-luck black widow moves herself and her son to China to work. There are a thousand racist jokes here, and if I were a professional standup comedian, I would have a hayday.

Because only professional standup comedians can make racist jokes and get away with it.

At least in the original, they took the New Jersey tough kid and threw him in the plausible pretty-boy California setting. A black family moving to China? There’s a larger disconnect than evangelicals to evolution.

They practically stole the scene from The Matrix when Neo learns he’s magic. When the Smith boy learns he can fight, it’s as if he’s magically gone from idiot weakling to a kick-ass, magical martial artist.

Another dumb part: There’s a kiss scene between the Smith boy and the object of his affection. I don’t know about you, but when I was 12, if I kissed a girl, I would have mucked it up. I wouldn’t have handled it like a practiced adult.

And the fight scenes at the finale competition (you know the movie so this isn’t a spoiler), kids are breaking legs. Kids! Kids are breaking legs. And then they’re saying, “No, mom, I can go on. Now give me my binky and go sit down!”

I don’t care what country you live in, if you’re 12, and you have a broken leg, you’re going to the goddamn hospital. There’s no sassing — especially a black mother — fo real!. There’s no fighting standing on one foot. You’re going to the fucking hospital and that’s that!